Duskbound

When the first settlers had shown up and founded what was now known as Celarut, they'd immediately prioritized building the Raven's Nest. Two stories tall and with eight rooms for travelers to rent out, it was the town's centerpiece and probably the only reason trading caravans bothered to venture this far out into the frontier.

Celarut was a lumber town, which was fine, in Torwin's opinion, but there were trees closer to civilization that had less monsters living in them, so he didn't really see why this particular town even existed. But he wasn't here as part of a caravan, no, he'd been hired to find and kill monsters, and since the Raven's Nest had the nicest inn for a hundred miles, Celarut had become Torwin's home base.

The seemingly limitless supply of ale had nothing to do with that decision.

Torwin made his way down to the common room about the same time the eastern sky started brightening with pre-dawn light. He wanted to push Jensen today, see if he couldn't get the boy's physical stat to mature a point on its own with system intervention, not that Jensen would thank him for it. No, the boy would be bitching and moaning by late afternoon and wanting to take extra breaks to offset the early start.

"Morning, Torwin," Induar said from the wood stove behind the bar. "The usual?"

"If you've got it," Torwin said.

"Three eggs, slice of ham, extra large mug of ale."

"Thanks," the old [Ranger] said, placing a pile of five copper hesplates on the counter in front of him. Technically, his meals were included in the price of his room, but he knew Induar was getting up early to cook for him, so he didn't mind adding a little extra. Besides, it wasn't like hesplates were worth much. A single decarma could be traded for five or six hundred of them, easily. It was only little frontier towns like Celarut or impoverished slums that even used them.

"Any luck finding your Black Fang yet?" Induar asked.

"Nothing, not even a footprint. I'm starting to think this is some sort of prank the whole town is pulling on me."

"Oh no, I assure you, he's very real," the cook said with a laugh. "Doesn't much like company, though, so I'm not surprised you're having trouble finding him."

"After two weeks, though? I've been up and down this whole stretch of the frontier. Fifty miles in either direction. Even stayed up in Deshir one night just so I could poke around the woods up there, and let me tell you, they've got nothing on your place."

"Don't try to butter me up, old-timer."

"I only speak the truth. Three-day-old bread and a slab of meat I couldn't even [Identify], it was so burnt. I've eaten better foraging for food after a month out in the woods."

There were five towns in close proximity out in this corner of the world, with Celarut being somewhat centrally located. They'd pooled resources together to take out a contract with the Hunters Guild, and Torwin had seized it as an opportunity to push his apprentice's levels and skills up. It wasn't until they'd actually arrived in Alnsberth that he'd started to suspect the extent of the problems up here had been misrepresented.

Going out into the woods was taking his own life in his hands. A monster encounter was an absolute certainty, probably several times a day even if he went out of his way to avoid them. The monsters seemed content to pass by the towns, with only the bravest and stupidest of the farmers maintaining fields too far from the relative safety of civilization.

But there wasn't a person in a single one of these towns who hadn't lived through a horde. If their stories were to be believed, it was incredible any of these places were still standing. Things had been bad ten years back, and then they'd slowly started to get better over the next few years, but the monster problem had never quite gone away completely. In the last few months, it had gotten worse than ever, with three of the five towns having fended off attacks over the summer.

It's not natural. Not once in thirty years have I seen anything like this. Something's wrong here, and not a one of these supposed frontiersmen has the first clue.

The Black Fang, on the other hand, might just have some answers. All five towns knew of him. There were plenty of rumors, though the folks up in Deshir stubbornly insisted he was the cause of all the monsters in the first place, but no one had been able to really explain who the Black Fang was or where he'd come from, or even if he was actually human. Torwin had heard a few rumors claiming he was part monster.

It was all a big, jumbled mess. He'd come here for some easy decarma and to train the apprentice the guild had foisted on him, not to untangle whatever it was that was going on out there. And yet, he was a professional, gold-ranked, and with a reputation to uphold. He couldn't just run out on the place now that he'd agreed to take care of the monster problem.

Of course, it'd be a lot easier to do that if Jensen would get his ass out of bed. That kid's never going to evolve his class if he keeps sleeping in every morning, Torwin thought sourly.

"You just keep at it. I'm sure you'll find the Black Fang eventually," Induar assured him. "Here, food's almost ready."

"And that's another thing, what kind of name is that anyway? Someone told me it's his class, but I've never heard of it."

The cook shrugged. "Never met him myself and don't know much about it. The man doesn't spend much time in town. I don't think he's been in Celarut in the last few years, though I've a friend down in Alnsberth who said he saw the Black Fang there about six months ago."

"Probably dead and in some monster's belly," Torwin grumbled. "That'd be my luck, just chasing ghosts through the woods for a month."

It wasn't all bad. The monster levels were too low to do Torwin any good, but Jensen was getting plenty of practice tracking and killing them. He'd already advanced [Tracking] twice this week alone and [Marksman] was close to ranking up, too. It was too bad the man was so stubborn about not wanting to take [Survivalist] when he opened up his next skill slot. That was going to delay his class evolution by months at minimum, but Jensen's family had too much power to be ignored.

Torwin was stuck with his apprentice for the foreseeable future. At least, he was if the lazy jerk ever showed up. It'd been twenty minutes now. Breakfast had been served and eaten. The beer was gone—though Torwin was considering a second mug—and sunlight streamed in through the windows.

One more beer, then I go roll his ass out of bed so we can get started.

Raising a hand to get Induar's attention, Torwin jiggled his empty mug and said, "One for the road?"

* * *

"Morgus's massive hairy balls, why are we awake right now?" Jensen whined.

Doing the guildmaster a favor. Getting paid well for it. Just keep the kid alive for another six months. It's his own fault if he's still a [Tracker] then.

Torwin wanted to reach out and smack his apprentice upside the head. Instead, he said, "Because we're here on a job and we're not making any progress on it, which means we're not working hard enough."

"I'm working plenty hard. You could have at least let me eat breakfast."

"You could have if you'd gotten out of bed when you were supposed to."

Torwin blocked out Jensen's complaining and glanced around curiously. It was never truly silent out in the woods, not unless something really bad was going down. There were always bugs buzzing or chirping, birds singing, and countless rustles of small animals moving through the brush. It only got quiet when predators were nearby and everything went into hiding, and even then, it didn't get this quiet.

"Jensen," Torwin said, interrupting his apprentice, "shut up."

Not totally useless, the old hunter thought to himself. Jensen wasn't actually that bad at his class; he just lacked the dedication needed to be truly great. Once he was focused on an issue, however, he was competent. The kid was already bringing up that fancy bow his father had bought him, the one that created steel arrows out of magic.

"I don't smell anything," he said. Glancing back at Torwin, he added, "Downwind, you think? Or some sort of scent-masking skill?"

Cocking an eyebrow, Torwin pointed up into the sky. Jensen followed the finger and froze, the blood draining from his already pale face when he saw what was flying overhead. It was obviously using some kind of magic to keep itself aloft, there being far too much mass for those thin skin flaps to do the job on their own. It looked something like a squirrel, except thirty feet long and covered in scaly plates of dark gray. Its incisors were huge and pointed, perfect for tearing into meat, and its tail had none of a squirrel's bushiness. Instead, bony protrusions grew out of it every foot or so.

Torwin could quite easily imagine that tail smashing through a tree just from the physical force of the strike, never mind whatever magic it had besides what was supporting its flight. This one was probably beyond Jensen's ability to tackle.

"What level is that?" his apprentice whispered harshly.

[Dire Clubtail Flying Squirrel (elite)- level 22. Stats: 39ph, 22me, 29my. Skills: Wind Tamer, Shred, Massive Impact.]

Well, he won't kill it, but it's good to experience fighting monsters stronger than you. Plus it'll keep him humble.

"If you had [Identify], you'd know. Get after it, now. We can't leave something like that to just roam around the forest causing problems."

"After it? Are you insane?" Jensen protested.

Putting a hard look on his apprentice, Torwin said, "This is the job. Sometimes the monsters are bigger than you. Deal with it. Now, move."